Conventional contact exposure systems commonly retain original photographic master and copy sheets in contact registration against a glass platen during exposure through the glass platen. Substantially uniform force may be exerted on the photosensitive materials to retain them in registration against the platen by providing an impervious vacuum blanket over the sheets and by evacuating air from the region between the blanket and platen. One difficulty encountered with conventional systems of this type is that residual volumes of air may not be evacuated from between the photographic sheets and result in air bubbles and creases in the sheets which then distort the reproduced image. Several schemes have been devised to ensure more complete evacuation of air from within the region between the photographic sheets and the platen, but such schemes still require glass platens of substantial thickness and weight to accommodate large photographic sheets, and still require significant intervals of vacuum pumping that slow down the throughput rate of photographic reproductions. In addition, exposure time may be long because the illumination is evenly spread over a large area that commonly includes the entire area of the platen out to borders and frames that may not be occupied by most reproductions. This results in exposure times that may be two or more times longer than would be required for exposure only of a usable area of an individual frame of photographic materials. Also, high-energy illumination sources for exposing an entire platen area, typically, as large as 8 feet by 10 feet, must be enclosed to avoid exposing an operator to ultraviolet radiation, and such sources and enclosures must then be ventilated for proper cooling.